Cost, Transit, and Field Shortages Limit Youth Soccer Access

The State of Soccer New York New Jersey report, supported by Laurie Tisch and discussed by ? tom-farrey, frames youth soccer in the region as a system where children’s interest is not the limiting factor. The limiting factors are cost, transportation, fields, and uneven access by gender and neighborhood.

Farrey said the Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program built the report from a survey of 700 kids, convenings with more than 100 regional leaders, analysis of field supply against demand, and direct input from families, coaches, and communities. It is the program’s first sport-specific report, intended to landscape “the state of play” through one ecosystem rather than through youth sports generally.

The findings shown on screen put children’s motivations in tension with the structure around them. Kids said they play primarily for social and intrinsic reasons: 48% play to be with friends, 46% play for fun, and only 23% prioritize winning. At the same time, pickup play is declining across the region.

That matters because the report’s access findings point in the other direction: organized play is increasingly mediated by money, logistics, and infrastructure. Cost was identified as the top issue, cited by 32% overall and 41% among low-income families. Transportation gaps were stark: only 21% of low-income players are driven, compared with 86% of high-income players. The report also found that demand for fields far exceeds supply in New York City and New Jersey.

Laurie Tisch said the report was useful not just as analysis but as “a great roadmap” for where her philanthropy should go. She praised the work for asking what children themselves want, not only what families, coaches, or institutions want. Her reading of the report centered on a simple question: “Who gets to play, who doesn’t.”

For Tisch, that question connects sports to the broader mission of the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination Fund: access and opportunity. She said the fund has long worked in the arts from the premise that a child’s zip code should not determine access to cultural opportunity. She argued the same principle applies to sports.

The practical barriers are familiar to her personally as well as philanthropically. Tisch noted that her grandchildren play on travel teams, where equipment and travel are expensive. That experience reinforced, rather than softened, the report’s equity point: if travel soccer is costly for families with resources, it can be prohibitive for families without them.

The report’s gender findings were presented as a separate warning. Farrey said girls make up only 38% of New York City high school soccer players, below the national average, and that girls drop out earlier and feel less represented.

Tisch called that “a very sad statistic,” while also making clear that girls’ participation is not an abstraction for her. She pointed to Keeper in the Game, a program she founded with Gotham FC, as her first major philanthropic entry into soccer. The program is about two years old and has reached 4,300 girls, with a goal of reaching 10,000 by 2028.

Keeper in the Game also became part of Gotham FC’s commercial partnership with Dove. Tisch said that when Dove came in as a back-of-shirt sponsor, it “took over” Keeper in the Game because the company wanted the program to be part of its legacy and rationale for involvement with Gotham. Tisch said her fund continues to support the program with Dove as a partner.

The report’s recommendations for girls were not limited to enrollment. The slide shown on screen called for expanding girls-only programs and female coaching, shifting from “pressure” to “play,” and reviving pickup soccer. That recommendation tied the gender issue back to the broader finding about why children play: joy, friendship, and connection are not incidental benefits; they are the reasons many children enter and stay in the game.

Before the report was released, Tisch committed $10 million to organizations in New York and Northern New Jersey to support youth soccer activity informed by the work. Farrey emphasized that she was not only interested in generating insights but in acting on them.

The report’s “clear path forward,” shown on screen, grouped its recommendations into three areas: reducing cost barriers and expanding access; investing in infrastructure and local play spaces; and keeping girls in the game while bringing back play. The specific recommendations included investing in community-based affordable programs, strengthening recreational systems and local infrastructure, building and activating fields, mini-pitches, and shared spaces, and prioritizing “soccer deserts” in underserved communities.

Tisch described the early implementation as work with multiple organizations, including South Bronx United, City Parks Foundation, Street Soccer USA, Soccer Forward, and Playworks. The examples she gave were deliberately varied: field-building, after-school programming, transportation support, and coaching capacity.

One concrete investment was newly announced in the discussion: a soccer field in Queens with Street Soccer USA. Tisch said that decision came from the report’s research, which indicated that Queens had especially high demand among children who wanted to play but lacked access.

The broader method, as Tisch described it, is to work with each organization around its specific constraints. Some may need transportation assistance. Others may need coaching support. Others may need infrastructure. Because the report was new, she framed the allocation of the $10 million as still unfolding, and said she hoped to return the following year with clearer evidence of what had been addressed.

Tisch’s comparison between arts and sports was not metaphorical. She said the strongest crossover is that both are domains where access, opportunity, and exposure are too often determined by zip code. Her fund’s arts work includes support for 30 organizations using the arts to address mental health, aging-related diseases, stigma, dementia, Alzheimer’s, and Parkinson’s disease, including Dance for PD.

She said sports philanthropy can use a similar approach: identify “where the holes are” and intervene. Farrey connected that to whole-child development, saying sports and arts both play a role. Tisch added that both can relate to mental health, school persistence, depression, and anxiety.

Farrey then described “Why We Play,” a new Aspen Institute Sports & Society Program project in partnership with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. The project began with a conversation series and is expected to continue through the year, including work at the Whitney Museum, where Tisch serves on the board. Farrey said the project is meant to deepen understanding of sport not as something peripheral, but as a force that has both reflected and shaped society since the 1890s, with implications for nation-building and American life.

Tisch’s closing point returned to evidence. Drawing on her earlier work running the Center for Arts Education, the Annenberg Initiative to put the arts back into public schools, she said anecdotes were not enough when asking funders for substantial support. Funders needed metrics and return on investment. She saw the soccer report as valuable for the same reason: it gives philanthropic action a measurable basis rather than relying only on stories of need.